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Main Tenets of Moral Development

Moral development is a process in which children understand and learn to distinguish between what is right and wrong (Stewart et al., 2019). It is one of the most studied concepts when studying development in children. According to all theories of moral development, society plays a role in moral development. Moral development was first brought up by Jean Piaget in 1932, but Lawrence Kohlberg is known as the psychologist who found the concept of moral development based on the works of Jean Piaget. Kohlberg’s theory is considered the main theory within the concept of moral development (Stewart et al., 2019).

According to Kohlberg’s moral development theory, there are three levels, and each level consists of two stages, all summing up to six stages in moral development (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). Level 1 is known as the pre-conventional level (age 9 years to adolescence) divided into obedience and punishment in the 1st stage and self-interest in the 2nd stage. In the first stage the individuals are given rules to follow by authoritative figures like their parents and individuals learn to follow these rules to avoid getting punished (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). In the second stage, individuals start to think and follow rules that are given by authority if they have any benefits for themselves. The second level is the conventional level (adolescence to adulthood) and it consists of the 3rd stage which is called conformity and interpersonal accord, where individuals begin to think about what others in society might think about their decisions and behavior (Mathes, 2021). In the 4th stage which is authority and maintaining social order, individuals start to follow rules that are set by society to maintain order in the society. The final level is post-conventional (adulthood- only a few individuals make it to this level) which consists of the final two stages of moral development according to Kohlberg (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). In the 5th stage called the social contract, individuals see rules that are set by society as strict rules and begin to think whether the rules serve their purpose in society. The final stage is known as the universal ethical principles where ethics comes into play and individuals start to follow their ethical principles over rules set by society to build moral guidelines of their own (Mathes, 2021). Kohlberg stated that many individuals do not reach the 6th stage. Kohlberg used a dilemma which is called Heinz’s dilemma that was made by him to study the development of morality (Mathes, 2021).

A strength of the moral development theory by Kohlberg; it helps to understand educational matters in young adults which has a positive effect and also to understand how they perceive morality (Vozzola & Senland, 2022). Much research is conducted on Kohlberg’s moral development theory which is a strength of the theory. The theory indicates how our behavior becomes less selfish and instead becomes more caring as our thinking matures. A weakness of the theory was that Kohlberg was using a dilemma created by Kohlberg to study and understand the stages in moral development which makes the results less valid to be applied to reality. Another weakness was that the theory could be culturally biased since society plays a role in the stages of moral development and it could be affected by different cultural norms (Vozzola & Senland, 2022).  

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Conflicting Theories in Moral Development

There are two conflicting theories with Kohlberg’s moral development theory. Kohlberg’s theory was based on a conflicting theory by Jean Piaget on moral development but Piaget’s theory of moral development consists of only two stages. Piaget in 1932 stated that the two stages that children undergo in the process of moral development are heteronomous morality and autonomous morality (Moheghi et al., 2020). The heteronomous morality which is also called moral realism is the first stage where children start to follow rules that are set by authority and avoid getting punished like the first stage in Kohlberg’s theory (Moheghi et al., 2020). The second and final stage which is the autonomous morality also called the moral relativism stage is where children build their own rules by realising what is wrong and right that shapes their morality. The difference between Kohlberg’s theory and Piaget’s moral development theory is that Kohlberg has identified four more stages between the two stages Piaget came up with (Moheghi et al., 2020).

Then Carol Gilligan who was an assistant of Kohlberg’s, crossed swords by stating that Kohlberg’s theory of moral development only focuses heavily on the moral development of men making the theory gender biased (Torres & Garcia, 2019). There Gilligan came up with a theory focusing on the moral development of women. The theory consisted of three stages with two transitions in between stages. In the 1st stage known as the pre-conventional stage, a woman’s moral judgments are made upon considering themselves instead of what society thinks or wants (Torres & Garcia, 2019). Then it’s transition 1 where a woman starts to understand that she is selfish and begins to see her responsibilities to other people. Next is the conventional stage where a woman begins to care for others, understanding her role within the society which makes her sacrifice many things instead of being selfish. After the conventional stage, it is transition 2 where a woman would face the conflict between her needs and other’s needs. This conflict gives rise to the need for balance between her own needs and others. In the final stage which is the post-conventional stage, a woman would begin to take account of universal ethics just like in Kohlberg’s final stage (Torres & Garcia, 2019).  

Piaget’s theory was able to estimate the ages at which each stage would occur in a child and many studies were conducted to confirm Piaget’s findings (Moheghi et al., 2020). Piaget’s theory was criticized for being gender biased since the study Piaget conducted only consisted of a sample of boys (Moheghi et al., 2020). Gilligan's theory was able to make many psychologists understand the stages of moral development in women and that women can equally reach the highest stage in moral development which was universal ethics, that Kohlberg suggests that women could not reach. Gilligan could not estimate the ages at which a woman would face each stage like Piaget’s or Kohlberg’s theories were able to, which is a weakness of Gilligan’s theory (Moheghi et al., 2020).

Applications of Moral Development in an Educational Context

Kohlberg’s moral development theory helps teachers in an educational context especially in a classroom, to understand what stages of moral development the children are in teachers understand how a child’s morality develops, the teachers can support and guide the children in these stages to become the best they could (Haslip & Gullo, 2018). For example, children in early childhood are where they are in their 1st stage and teachers in these stages guide children by making them follow certain rules and help them from misbehaving by rewarding and punishing them (Haslip & Gullo, 2018). When they make it to early elementary they are in their 2nd stage and rewards and avoiding punishments motivate them to follow the rules. Children are in late elementary when they reach the 3rd stage where they start to care for other students and by the time they reach high school they reach the 4th stage where they learn to work with other students and care for them too (Rissanen et al., 2018). When students reach high school, teachers make students work on projects together in groups and even organize study groups which help them reach their optimum in stage 4 of moral development. This helps to build a more productive, efficient and better educational environment for children (Rissanen et al., 2018).

Another example of moral development in an educational context is the use of the moral dilemma approach is mainly used in high schools and in university courses that consist of social studies focusing on social behaviors and thinking across the globe (Wintzer & Baumann, 2021). Children are given a social moral dilemma and are asked what they think about the situation and how they would react to the given situation. Then teachers analyze students’ responses to the dilemma and use Kohlberg’s moral development theory to help students understand what stage of moral development they are in and how to improve their moral reasoning ability to achieve more morality (Wintzer & Baumann, 2021).

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Research Evidence 

There has been much research conducted on moral development in children that supports Kohlberg’s theory. Spring et al. conducted a study on the moral development perspective on children’s ability to witness. The study aimed to understand how levels of morality could affect a child as an eyewitness (Spring et al., 2015). The study was a combination of 2 studies where study 1 consisted of 138 children ages 7-18 years from a Jewish private elementary school and a Roman private high school in New York (Spring et al., 2015). The children were grouped according to age and were shown two films of a man intentionally and unintentionally burning a restaurant. Then children were asked to identify the perpetrator and what punishment should he receive and many children answered that a fine, community service and jail as the common answers from age groups of 10-12, 14-15, and 16-17 but not much from the 7-9-year group. They were then asked whether the man did it intentionally or unintentionally. Children of the age group of 7-9 years were not able to identify whether the person did it intentionally or unintentionally. Whereas the other age groups were able to identify (Spring et al., 2015). 

In study 2 children were shown a man making a fire in a restaurant and it caused minor or major damage to the restaurant. Study 2 confirmed the findings of Study 1 and the man’s punishment was higher in the responses for the man causing major damage than causing minor damage increasing as the age group increases (Spring et al., 2015). After analyzing the results of both studies they concluded that children in the age group 7-9 years are less likely to determine what is right and wrong, whilst age group 10-12 years and upwards the morality level increased as the age group increased. A strength is that this study helps to understand children as eyewitnesses in a forensic setting. A limitation of the study was that there were many false alarms and misses and the reason behind the child’s responses was not taken into consideration (Spring et al., 2015). This study helps to understand how a child’s morality is developed especially supporting Kohlberg’s theory about the stages and ages children learn morality.

A study by Tadjuddina et al. also studied moral development in children. The study aimed to study the moral concept in the development of morality in early childhood from a holistic perspective (Tadjuddina et al., 2019). There was a qualitative study involving observations and interviews as a method of collecting data. The sample consisted of 81 participants from a kindergarten in Lampung, Indonesia via random sampling. Tadjuddina focused on parenting patterns, moral development in school and how the children interacted with society with the use of moral values in their behavior and decision-making (Tadjuddina et al., 2019). After the data was collected it was analyzed using an interactive analysis method. According to the findings of this study, it was clear that an increase in moral development in a positive direction can be seen with the holistic approach which consists of religious beliefs, family, academics, cultural backgrounds, etc. Tadjuddina et al. concluded that children from an early stage start to build up moral development with the help of family, community and peer interactions, hence integrations with family, community and peers play a major role in children building up moral development from an early stage (Tadjuddina et al., 2019). 

A strength of this study is that it is conducted in a holistic perspective that looks into many factors that can affect moral development early in children thus the findings from this research can be used in Early Childhood Education Program (PAUD) in many schools. A limitation of the study was that since it was qualitative research no statistical data was collected which makes it difficult to validate and the findings cannot be generalized that the study was only based in Indonesia which makes the findings culturally biased (Tadjuddina et al., 2019). This study supports Kohlberg’s theory where he stated that interactions from a child’s environment such as family and community do play a major role in starting moral development in a child.

References

Haslip, M. J., & Gullo, D. F. (2018). The changing landscape of early childhood education: Implications for policy and practice. Early Childhood Education Journal, 46(3), 249-264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-017-0865-7

Kohlberg, L., & Hersh, R. H. (1977). Moral development: A review of the theory. Theory into practice, 16(2), 53-59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405847709542675

Mathes, E. W. (2021). An evolutionary perspective on Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Current Psychology, 40(8), 3908-3921. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00348-0

Moheghi, M., Ghorbanzadeh, M., & Abedi, J. (2020). The investigation and criticism moral development ideas of kohlberg, piaget and gilligan. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 7(2), 362-374.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v7i2.1516

Rissanen, I., Kuusisto, E., Hanhimäki, E., & Tirri, K. (2018). The implications of teachers’ implicit theories for moral education: A case study from Finland. Journal of Moral Education, 47(1), 63-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2017.1374244

Spring, T., Saltzstein, H. D., & Vidal, B. (2015). A moral developmental perspective on children’s eyewitness identification: Does intent matter?Archives of Scientific Psychology, 3(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1037/arc0000011

Stewart, D. W., Sprinthall, N. W., & Shafer, D. M. (2019). Moral development in public administration. Handbook of administrative ethics, 457-480.

Tadjuddina, N., Elfiahb, R., Meriyatic, M., Suardi, I., & Wekked, A. S. (2019). The interaction of children’s early moral development process through a holistic approach. Interaction, 8(9).

Torres, V., & Garcia, Y. (2019). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development by Carol Gilligan. Journal of college student development, 60(3), 372-375. 10.1353/csd.2019.0032

Vozzola, E. C., & Senland, A. K. (2022). From Stages to Schemas: Kohlberg and Rest. In Moral Development (pp. 27-42). Routledge.

Wintzer, J., & Baumann, C. (2021). Facing moral dilemmas as a method: Teaching ethical research principles to geography students in higher education. In Research Ethics in Human Geography (pp. 200-212). Routledge.